Dems could do far more to end Iraq war

The vast majority of Democrats in Congress are powerfully clear about what they think about the war in Iraq. It is the greatest strategic blunder of a generation.

It is a lost cause. Above all, it is immoral — with more men and women dying each day for a war that many Democrats concluded years ago was a terrible mistake.

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But clarity gives way to muddle when you pose a simple question to Democrats: After eight months in power on Capitol Hill, why have you not done more to end the war?

Most answers come down to some version of “There’s nothing we can do.”

“If you don’t have the votes, you don’t have the votes,” Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) said in an interview. He was citing all the familiar arithmetic.

It takes 60 votes to end debate in the Senate, two-thirds of both chambers to override a presidential veto.

These answers are correct — and misleading almost to the point of deception.

We’re not in the business of giving politicians advice.

But it’s a simple truth, whether you support the war or not: There is a lot more Democrats could do to change, or at least challenge, the politics of the war in Washington, even if they do not have the numbers to impose new policies on President Bush.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) could force a vote a day over Iraq. She could keep the House in session all night, over weekends and through planned vacations.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) could let filibusters run from now till Christmas rather than yield to pro-war Republicans.

Such tactics might or might not be politically sensible, but in their absence, anti-war lawmakers can hardly say they have done everything possible to challenge the war and bring attention to their cause.

Lawmakers over the past generation have threatened and sometimes carried out such extreme parliamentary maneuvers over less consequential matters than dying soldiers.

Republican leaders a few years ago warned they would pursue the “nuclear option” and rewrite Senate rules if Democrats tried to block Bush’s judicial nominees.

In the 1980s, some Republicans contemplated chaining themselves to pillars of the Capitol to protest a disputed congressional election in Indiana.

Democrats, in on-the-record and on-background interviews, said they do not do these things because they would be bad politics. Democrats in the House and Senate would splinter over such extremist measures.

In closed-door caucus meetings, members say, Democratic leaders like Reps. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) have carried the day by warning that there is no appetite for such tactics in the districts of vulnerable Democrats, upon whom the party’s new majority status depends.

Many of these districts are in red states with rural regions filled with military families.

Above all, Democrats do not wish to open themselves to a charge they believe is demagogic, but effective — that they are turning their backs on troops in the field.